Editing Michael Kenna (politician) (section)

===Early career===
[[File:Workingmen's Exchange 2019.jpg|thumb|The building that housed the Workingman's Exchange and Alaska Hotel, pictured in 2019.]]
Upon his return to Chicago{{sfn|Sawyers|p=141|ps=none}} Kenna opened a saloon on [[Clark Street (Chicago)|Clark Street]] known as the Workingman's Exchange where he doled out meals to the indigent in exchange for votes.{{sfn|Abbott|p=58|ps=none}} Above the Workingman's Exchange was the Alaska Hotel, which could provide space for 300 men, and up to 600 during elections.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=170|ps=none}} By 1882 his saloon was a success and he was a fixture in the 1st Ward Democratic organization under Chesterfield Joe Mackin; his work in securing [[Grover Cleveland]]'s victory in the [[1884 United States presidential election|1884 election]] led Mackin to make him captain of his precinct immediately prior to being imprisoned for fraud related to that election.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=75|ps=none}} It was at this time that Kenna first encountered John Coughlin, although the two would not become close friends for a while.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=75|ps=none}} Coughlin, who had in his early life served as a bathhouse [[masseur]], was popularly known as "Bathhouse John" or "The Bath". When Coughlin was first elected as alderman in 1892, Kenna helped the campaign as he normally would but did not make any extra effort.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=76|ps=none}} When [[Carter Harrison III]] ran for mayor [[1893 Chicago mayoral election|in 1893]], Kenna was to quick to support him while Coughlin was one of the last holdouts, straining relations between the two.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=76|ps=none}} However, Harrison's betrayal of Kenna by prosecuting him for gambling just like others in the 1st Ward,{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=76|ps=none}} as well as the rise of the detested rival Billy Skakel, led Kenna to reconsider an alliance with Coughlin as McDonald's influence started to wane.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=77|ps=none}} In 1893, Kenna proposed an alliance which Coughlin readily accepted.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=77|ps=none}} Coughlin was the public face of the machine while Kenna would work in the background.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=217|ps=none}}

Kenna started the new organization by proposing that a defense fund be organized from protection money from [[brothel]] keepers and gamblers to legally defend members of the organization who got into trouble.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=79|ps=none}} From such fund two lawyers would be retained at $10,000{{efn|${{Inflation|US|10000|1893|2018|fmt=c|r=-4}} in 2018}} a year to represent organization members; Kenna and Coughlin themselves paid the initial $10,000.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=79|ps=none}} The future judge John R. Caverly, who would later preside over the trial of [[Leopold and Loeb]],<ref name="Caverly">{{cite web |title=Clarence Darrow's Pleads Leopold and Loeb Guilty|url=http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/leoploeb/darrowsplea.html |publisher=University of Missouri Kansas City |access-date=April 13, 2020}}</ref> received his first fees from this fund.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=79|ps=none}}

For the [[1893 Chicago mayoral special election|special mayoral election]] triggered by [[Assassination of Carter Harrison III|Harrison's assassination]], Kenna and Coughlin broke with traditional Harrison supporters by supporting [[John Patrick Hopkins]].{{sfn|Hogan|p=36|ps=none}} Kenna is noted as a member of the [[Cook County Democratic Party]] Central Committee for the 1st Ward as of December 21, 1893, serving alongside John P. Leindecker.<ref name="Eagle committee">{{cite news |title=The New Democratic Committee |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/339077530/ |url-access=subscription |access-date=April 27, 2019 |work=Chicago Eagle |volume=9 |issue=220 |page=4 |date=December 23, 1893 }}</ref> He succeeded [[James Walsh (Illinois politician)|James Walsh]],<ref name="Walsh">{{cite book |title=The Daily News Almanac and Political Register for 1891 |last=Plumbe |first=George E. |publisher=The Chicago Daily News |year=1891 |page=299 |url=https://archive.org/details/chicagodailynews1891unse/page/298/mode/2up/ |access-date=April 13, 2020}}</ref> who had been an alderman from the [[10th ward, Chicago|10th ward]] from 1883 to 1885.<ref name="Centennial List">{{cite web |title=Centennial List of Mayors, City Clerks, City Attorneys, City Treasurers, and Aldermen |url=http://chsmedia.org/media/fa/fa/LIB/AldermansList.htm |publisher=Chicago Historical Society |access-date=13 April 2020}}</ref>

An early example of Kenna's organizational skills was the 1894 aldermanic election. Coughlin was unanimously nominated as the Democratic nominee{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=97|ps=none}} in what [[Lloyd Wendt]] and [[Herman Kogan]] would later call "the briefest political convention in Chicago's history"<ref>p. 97</ref> and was reported  by the ''Chicago Herald'' as lasting "only a few minutes as the delegates were in a hurry to get away to attend a prize fight."{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=98|ps=none}} However, rival Billy Skakel, who specialized in offering and soliciting gambling on fraudulent stock quotations and hated Coughlin for allowing local Prince Hal Varnell to cut into his turf,{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=98|ps=none}} formed his own Independent Democratic Party.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=99|ps=none}} Working with Sol van Praag, who had ambitions of his own to rule the 1st Ward,{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=98|ps=none}} he ran as a rival to Coughlin for the race and was endorsed by such publications as ''Mixed Drinks: The Saloon Keepers' Journal''.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=99|ps=none}} Fearing for his career despite Kenna's insistence that he would win, Coughlin visited Hopkins, who unsuccessfully asked Skakel to withdraw from the race.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=100|ps=none}} Coughlin then presented a petition to get Skakel's name removed from the ballot,{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=100|ps=none}} which was initially accepted by the election board but would later be overturned by a local judge and backfire on Coughlin.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=101|ps=none}}  Nevertheless, Kenna reassured Coughlin of victory{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=101|ps=none}}  and used his organizational skills to bribe the homeless with fifty cents,{{efn|${{Inflation|US|0.5|1894|2018}} in 2018}} as much food as desired, and a place to stay for each voter.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=102|ps=none}} Kenna also suggested that Coughlin visit Hopkins once again and remind him of how the duo had helped him avoid scandal in a gas-boodling concern.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=103|ps=none}} After Hopkins once again pled with Skakel to withdraw to no avail, he ordered the police department in the 1st Ward to detain any Skakel supporters seen and to close any saloons supporting Skakel immediately at midnight.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=103|ps=none}} Kenna also recruited members of the Quincy Street gang to protect any voters of Coughlin, noting that the police would ignore any tactics used to that effect; in such efforts he preceded van Praag, who had had a similar idea, by a few hours.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=104|ps=none}} Coughlin would win the election with 2,671 votes while independent [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] J. Irving Pearce received 1,261 and Skakel received 1,046.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=107|ps=none}} The tactics used in the election received much scorn in the press,{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=103|ps=none}} with the ''Chicago Tribune'' writing that "Bathhouse John's election was secured by methods which would have disgraced even the worst river parishes of Louisiana", but neither Coughlin nor Kenna cared about such reception.{{sfn|Wendt|Kogan|p=108|ps=none}}